Anniversary in Broken Bow

Even though our New England trip was our big anniversary celebration, we decided we couldn't let the actual anniversary week go by without a little getaway.  So we decided to head out to Broken Bow for a vacation from our vacation!

Let's go!

We headed straight to Grateful Head pizza when we arrived in town.  Since we didn't get there right when they opened, we had to wait for an hour. Luckily, it's worth waiting for!

I couldn't wait to devour this pizza.

We knew the weather was going to be pretty terrible while we were there so we didn't plan to do too much.  But one thing we did want to do was check out the new Choctaw resort, Choctaw Landing.  So we headed there next.

The casino was pretty small and the games had higher minimums than we are used to.  But we found a few games to play and ended up walking out with $50.

Then we went and picked up food at Mountain Man Meat Market.  We got wagyu ground beef for burgers, sausage, hot dogs, and sides and it was all really good.  This will be a permanent stop every trip from now on!

Then it was off to the Pine Lake Resort, the same resort the family stayed at for Thanksgiving in 2022.  

We chose a couple's cabin for this trip, Romantic Pines.

 We had a view of Pine Lake.

After getting settled, Ben grilled hot dogs for dinner and then we hit the hot tub before bed.

The next day was Monday and the forecast was rain all day with potentially heavy storms later in the evening.  So we settled in for a day of doing nothing at the cabin.

Ben grilled hamburgers for lunch and they were delicious as usual!

Burger perfection!

After lunch, the weather cleared a bit so we felt brave enough to take a walk.  We walked the entire loop of the Pine Lake Resort.

The clear weather was still holding so we decided to take a little drive into town.  We went to Okie Girls ice cream and Ben got a cone and I got an affogato, which is vanilla ice cream topped with a shot of espresso.  It was so good!

We drove to Lakeview Lodge to get a view of Broken Bow Lake.

We could see the storm clouds starting to form so we decided we better head back.

As we drove back to the cabin, it started to rain.  Once we were back at the cabin, I noticed we had a tornado warning on our phone that included Hochatown and Broken Bow.  So it was a warning we had to take seriously.  We searched for any news on the internet that we could find since we didn't have any local channels at the cabin.

Uh oh!!

Finally, it expired and we could breathe a sigh of relief!

Back to my wine.

There was no hot tubbing this night though, as the storms continued until the next morning.   But the weather started to clear up a bit the next day.

We decided to take a drive to the Forest Heritage Center inside the state park.  There are some cool exhibits there and we thought it would be a nice indoor place to spend time until the rain stopped.

The center has a 100-year-old log cabin and post office on the grounds which are always fun to see.

Can you imagine living here?

I suggested we go back to Choctaw Landing and have some fun on the machines with the $50 we won on Sunday.  So we headed back over to try our luck on video poker.  We found a triple-play machine at the bar and right away, we drew a Flush, which would have won us about $18.

But we had also drawn four to the Royal Flush--meaning we had three chances at a big win.  We decided to go for it!  

Woo hoo!  A Royal Flush!

We walked out winners!  The weather had finally cleared so we decided to go sit by the lake.

For lunch, we tried the new BBQ place in town, Naaman's BBQ, and it was soooo good! 

After lunch, I told Ben I had to get some steps in somehow.  We wanted to be very careful hiking since the ground was still very wet.  So we did the .40 mile Lakeview Lodge loop which is an easy hike through the woods.

We had a little peek-a-view of the lake as we walked.

Then we walked down to Lakeview Lodge and walked around by the shoreline and sat in the Adirondack chairs at the lodge.

Back at the cabin, we hung out on the porch.

A deer family came to say hello.

Ben cooked up some sausages.

And we saw a beautiful sunset.

Then we hit the hot tub one more time.

The next day we went and got a coffee at the coffee shop and I had one more coffee on the porch.

Then we packed up to leave.  We saw more deer driving out of Pine Lake.

And then we were back home after another relaxing Broken Bow trip.  The next day was our actual anniversary.  We celebrated with some Italian takeout and a bottle of champagne.

We looked at our wedding photos and all of the cards we received on our wedding day.  It was so fun remembering all of the wonderful details from 15 years ago!

We finished off our anniversary celebration on Friday at Del Frisco's where Fran and Harvey took us to lunch.

Happy 15-year Anniversary to us!  Wherever we are is where I want to be.

Until the next vacation, remember...